The everyday adventures of our homeschool according to The Chemist, wife to The Historian for 20 years and mother of The Crafter (dd 14), Wild Thing (ds 10) and Princess Pink (dd 8).

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day: Lesson 1

We've been studying birds this year using Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day from Apologia. It's been fun so far. The first half of Lesson One covered the definition of zoology, classification, and the principle of flight. The first experiment involved placing a straw in a full cup of water and trimming the straw so that it only stuck up 1/2 inch. Then you blew at the top of the straw with another straw. Water was supposed to spray out of the straw that is in the cup when the air flow over the top of the straw reduced the air pressure.

It worked. I ended up having to hold the straw in the cup while Princess Pink blew. There was plenty of water on the table. I'm not sure how much of it came out of the correct straw

The second experiment involved making two gliders. Both had wings had equal areas. One was 1 X 8 inches and the other was 2 X 4 inches. Then they threw the gliders and measured how far they flew.

(Gliders made by Wild Thing)﻿

Then they threw the gliders 10 times each and measured how far they flew each time. The Crafter recorded the data and computed the average.

We did not get good results from this experiment. The glider with the thinner wing was supposed to have a longer flight. Our results were about equal. I can't remember the exact numbers, and I'm too lazy to go find the Crafter's science notebook.